8. And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood--12:15. The water as a flood from the mouth of the serpent was the symbol of an overwhelming tide of persecution, combining all of the Satanic forces of destruction at the command of the serpent. The psalmist David used the same imagery in Psalms 18:4; Psalms 18:16 : “ The floods of ungodly men made me afraid . . . he drew me out of many waters.” In a poem of salvation Isaiah, the prophet, exclaimed: “ When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.” (Isaiah 59:19) The prophet Jeremiah foretold the destruction of Philistia with the same symbolic description as David and Isaiah: “ Behold waters rise out of the north, and shall be an overflowing flood, and shall overflow the land and all that is therein: then the men shall cry and all the inhabitants of the land shall howl.” (Jeremiah 47:2) The most significant Old Testament use of the flood symbol is Daniel’ s parallel prophecy on the destruction of Jerusalem, generally referred to as “ the seventy weeks of Daniel.” (Daniel 9:27) The mathematical computations bring the fulfillment of this prophecy from “ the going forth” of the commandment to rebuild and restore the temple to the final destruction of Jerusalem--the whole period from the proclamation of Cyrus to the end of the Jewish commonwealth-- in the words of Daniel “ the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.” (Daniel 9:26) The dual phrases “ the end thereof shall be with a flood” and “ unto the end of the war desolations are determined“ referred to the flood of persecution and the end of the war terminating in the fall of Jerusalem and end of the Jewish state. Thus the prophecy of Daniel is identified and merged with the apocalypse of John on the siege with its overwhelming flood of persecution. Such is the evident application of chapter 12, verse 15, of Revelation--“ And the serpent cast out of his mouth as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood.” The woman escaped this flood of the horrible onslaught of this war of the Romans against Jerusalem, declared by Nero, ordered by Vespasian and executed by Cestius Gallius and his general, Titus. These related events blend naturally and historically with the apocalypse, and they are not anachronistic.